A universe from nothing? What you should know before you hear the Krauss-Craig debate

The ABC’s opinion pages has posted my introduction to the debate between Lawrence Krauss and William Lane Craig, happening this evening at the Sydney Town Hall. The debate topic is “Why is there something rather than nothing?”. Can science answer the question? Can God? Can anyone? Read on.

The article I submitted had a few footnotes, cut from the ABC’s version. I’ll put them here, for completeness.

“.. the entire enterprise of studying the natural world was embedded in a theological framework that emphasized divine creation, design, and providence. These themes are prominent in the writings of almost all the major seventeenth-century natural philosophers.”

One mustn’t claim too much. The scientific revolution owes a lot to the efforts of Arabic, Greek, Roman, and Babylonian thinkers, amongst others, as well as commercial, civil and military interests in new technology. My point is that historically, God did not jump on the science bandwagon. The opposite is closer to the truth.

This is also not to deny the existence of a strong anti-science tendencies within some strands of religion. Religions that make claims about the physical universe may find themselves in science’s cross hairs.

“The universe as a whole may have zero net energy.”

Krauss spends most of Chapter 6 of his book telling us that the universe has no Newtonian energy if it is exactly spatially flat, as our universe appears to be. “A universe from nothing … indeed”, he says. He then undoes all his good work by noting that inflation erases any information about whether the universe as a whole is flat or not, as the observable universe will always look flat. He further admits in Chapter 10 that the Newtonian energy is irrelevant, as we should be using Einstein’s theory of general relativity (GR). In GR, the energy of the universe (and gravitational energy in particular) is not well-defined, and energy is not conserved in an expanding universe.

“I’m with Albert and my reasons mirror his”

When Jerry Coyne agreed with Albert, Krauss claimed that his book was not “focusing on the classical question that has bother[ed] philosophers, but I don’t think I ever claim to”. That “classical question” is “why is there something rather than nothing?”. The subtitle of Krauss’ book is “Why there is something rather than nothing”. Go figure.

Inconsistency with “nothing” abounds. Having admitted that it would be “disingenuous to suggest that empty space endowed with energy … is really nothing”, just a few pages later he is telling us that in a universe emptied by expansion “nothingness would reign supreme”, and that the creation of particle from the empty space around a black hole shows that “under the right conditions, not only can nothing become something, it is required to”.

The book descends into the ridiculous. Krauss tells us that, ‘“Something” may not be very special or even very common in the multiverse’. So, in the totality of physical existence, it might be that only some things are “something” but most things aren’t “something”. That is exactly as daft as it sounds. This nonsense has no warrant from modern cosmology.

“If universes that can sustain the complexity required for intelligent life forms are rare in the set of possible universes”

In the past 40 years, this is exactly what scientists have discovered about the laws of nature. This is known as the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life, sometimes discussed under the heading of “the anthropic principle”. Some seemingly minor changes in the laws of nature (in particular, the constants that appear in those laws) would have rather catastrophic effects on the universe – all solids melt, atoms fall apart, stars fail to shine, chemistry (and thus biochemistry) doesn’t work, planets don’t form or spiral into their stars, universes collapse into oblivion or blast into emptiness, all is black holes. The interested reader is referred my review paper of the scientific literature on fine-tuning, which appeared in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia.

I’ve been wondering recently: Are there any fundamental laws of physics that are unnecessary for life?

Answering this question requires more knowledge than I have of which laws are fundamental, and which are derived as logical consequences of more fundamental laws. For example: The uncertainty principle? Particle-wave duality?

It went alright, I think. A little too much interruption, and some red-herrings from the moderator, but reasonably civil and on-topic.

The most interesting bit came when Craig was trying to justify premise 2 of his argument:

“If the universe has an explanation, then that explanation is God.”

Krauss disputed this premise in the opening speech, saying that it just assumed God did it. Craig’s argument for premise 2 went something like this:

A. Definition: the universe is the totality of physical reality. (Call it the multiverse if you like, if there is one.)
B. Then, if the universe has an explanation, it cannot be in terms of physical things.
C. Since the universe includes all matter, energy, space and time, the explanation must then be a transcendent, immaterial, spaceless and timeless entity.
D. The only thing that Craig can think of that can be a cause whilst being immaterial is an unembodied mind.
E. Thus, if the universe has an explanation, then that explanation is a transcendent, immaterial, spaceless and timeless mind. That being deserves the title “God”.

Krauss responded by questioning the definition. He tried to get Craig to say that physical reality was just everything in spacetime, since then he could say that science can talk about spacetime foams and other postulated physical things more fundamental than spacetime. I think, given more time to clarify, Craig would have said that spacetime foam is a physical thing (since it can appear in physical theories) so its part of the universe.

Krauss also responded that D merely states the limit of the human mind, and says nothing about reality. Craig could have responded by asking for an alternative, or rephrased the argument as an inference to the best explanation. I think that “the only hypotheses I can think of” type assumptions are lurking behind almost all inferences. (Maybe I can show that from Bayes theorem. I’ll have a think about that.).

This was the most relevant bit of the debate, but then things got sidetracked (I think because of the moderator).

I think that Dr. Craig is leaving it to his opponent to present and defend alternatives to his views. It’s not his job in the time he has to present alternatives and refute. That’s the job of his opponent. Dr. Peter Millican did a good job of doing that in his debate with Dr. Craig, and Dr. Craig had to defend and refute the alternatives that Dr. Millican presented.

Thanks for your comments, Dr. Barnes. I linked to your preview and to this review of the debate as well.

I was there and I would be more critical than you, Luke. The opening statements were fine, but it would have been good to hear them each reply to the other’s. But after that, the moderator took a lot of the discussion off into something not very focused and relevant, and I thought little of it was helpful, because few points were completed. I agree with you that the brief discussion of Craig’s version of Leibniz’s argument looked interesting, but it needed to be argued through a little more. So I was disappointed.

[…] Before the night, Aussie astrophysicist Luke Barnes wrote of the philosophical and scientific deficiencies in Krauss’s arguments. Luke was attending the “conversation” and I can only think he must have been very disappointed, because very little was revealed. (Later note: Luke appears to have been less critical that I was. […]

I attended a debate/discussion in Guildford Cathedral a few years ago that was billed as “The God Particle Debate” and had that Dr Brian Cox on the panel. The moderator was competent enough, but what ruined the event was the bloody audience: there was a never-ending supply of space cadets with their own pet theories of Life, the Universe and Everything who would only give up the floor when it was prised from their cold, dead hands. They didn’t want to part in the discussion, only to expound their own ideas, and as the mic for audience members wasn’t as clear and loud as for the panel, much time was spent listening to muffled and mumbling amateur oddballs droning on and on. Sigh…

No, that isn’t me – and you’re not the first person to ask! How do I loathe him – let me count the ways: I don’t agree with almost anything he says, I love Christmas and he wrote a book dissing it, and his girly blond hair irritates me. Worse, when I write my blockbuster £million novel (one day!) I’ll have to use a pseudonym, or initials or middle names or something, to differentiate myself from the fluffy-haired git….

[…] sounds like a friendly chat rather than a confrontation, in practice it unfairly unfavors the rude and the loud. We are at the mercy of the disciplinary skill of the moderator. However, this one shouldn’t be […]

[…] More on the upcoming Carroll vs. Craig dialogue (previously, one, two, three). I have some leftover business from my previous post on the contingency argument for the existence of God. It concerns the question why is there something something rather than nothing?, a question I’ve discussed on a few previous occasions. […]

[…] universe exists at all, let alone fine-tuned values of constants. I’ve explained this before here and here. Fine-tuning for life to exist at all is, however, and interesting kind of fine-tuning. I […]